


Drowned

by CuriosityRedux



Series: Dragon Drabbles Berk [5]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hiccstrid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 21:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16751572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriosityRedux/pseuds/CuriosityRedux
Summary: She'd always been afraid of the open water.





	Drowned

**Drowned**

**-**

Hiccup nearly twisted his ankle throwing himself from Toothless’ saddle before his leg had the chance to switch gears. He cringed and switched to his walking foot with shaking hands so he could untangle himself from the stirrup and trip to the wet bundle his dragon had set down on the cliff’s edge. 

“Astrid! Astrid, are you okay?”

Dripping and pale, his girlfriend coughed and sobbed as she tried to push up onto her elbows. Her features were twisted with terror and distress. When he fell to his knees at her side, she grabbed onto his reaching arms with claw-like hands. She was cold, ocean brine dampening his own clothes as he pulled her against his chest. His heart beat a frantic tattoo into her shoulder. 

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” he assured her when she was unable to form words. She trembled, and he had to wave two concerned dragons away from her. “Gods, you scared me.”

The winds got strong over open water. Generally it wasn’t a problem, simply an issue of staying low to his dragon’s back. But it had been a mild afternoon all day, until an especially strong gust interrupted their flight mid-conversation and wrenched Astrid from Stormfly’s back. They hadn’t been able to catch her in time, and she’d plunged beneath the surface. Foam hissed and churned for several minutes, but she didn’t surface.

Hiccup rocked his crying girlfriend in his arms, adrenaline still racing through his system. He’d never been so terrified, trapped in the air above and unable to reach her. Stormfly screeched and dove at the water, but her talons came up empty each time. Eventually he saw the water ripple– the back of a tidal class dragon crested for just a second– and then she appeared again, screaming and struggling.

“Hate water,” she choked out, holding onto his arm in a vice like death. “Hate it.”

“I know.” He pushed wet hair out of her face, pressed a kiss to her chilled forehead. “It’s over. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” It wasn’t the first time she’d admitted her fear of deep waters to him. The rivers and streams around Berk were fine, but the ocean made her nervous. 

“I was just so– so deep,” she hiccuped through her tears, shaking her head. “I couldn’t figure out which way was up, and– and I kept swimming in the wrong direction. My– my hood was choking me. I couldn’t  _see_  anything.” He noticed as soon as she said it that her fur was missing– she must have detached it when it became too heavy and let it sink. 

“It’s okay,” he murmured, holding her tight. Resting his cheek against her crown, he tried not to think about what might have happened if that tidal class dragon hadn’t nudged her towards the surface. In his mind’s eye, he saw her body break the grey-blue water and float motionlessly, and he shuddered at the image. “It’s okay, babe. I’ve got you.”

It took several minutes for her sobbing to ease into uneasy sniffling. Once her shaking passed, he allowed Stormfly to come near and nuzzle her rider’s face. Astrid didn’t let go of Hiccup’s shirt, but she murmured a thanks to her concerned dragon. She was heavy and limp in his embrace, leaning against his chest and still drawing heavy breaths. The weak sunlight streamed down from the sparse clouds, but the air was still tinged with a chill. She started shivering in his arms.

“You can’t fly like that,” he mumbled into her temple. Straightening, he reached around her to wring water from her braid. “We’ll have to wait until you dry off.”

She nodded. Her hands finally released their tight grip on his sleeve and searched his torso. “I got you wet,” she noticed. 

“Eh, I was hot anyways,” he lied. Leaning back, he unfolded his legs beneath them and moved to kneel. “C’mon. Let’s get you out of those clothes.”

Her teeth chattered, blue-tinted lips curling upwards in a dazed, tired smile. “Good words. Bad place.” 

Hiccup laughed, pleased to hear her humor was returning. “Astrid, with you, there’s  _never_  a bad place.” 

He helped her to her feet and aided her in peeling soaking fabric away from her cold skin. After, he shed some of his own clothes so he could pull his mostly-dry undershirt over her head. Once he’d twisted the brine from her clothes and laid them out on sunny rocks to dry, two trilling, chirruping dragons wrapped around them to keep them warm. 

Astrid leaned back against his chest once more, resting her head on his shoulder. “That was the most terrified I’ve ever been in my entire life.”

Hiccup clenched his jaw, lacing her cool fingers in his. He’d been afraid many times– under fire in dragon training, while facing his village in the kill ring, flying to battle against the Red Death. But on an almost warm spring afternoon, with a blue sky above him, an icy fist of horror had clenched around his heart and still hadn’t quite let go. 

He sighed and turned his face to kiss her cheek. “I was scared too.”


End file.
